


Five Times Pam Almost Called Jim Over the Summer

by sophiahelix



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: F/M, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-24
Updated: 2006-09-24
Packaged: 2017-10-19 13:45:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/201524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiahelix/pseuds/sophiahelix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summer 2006</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Pam Almost Called Jim Over the Summer

_June 8th_

You don't break up with people at noon on a summer's day, forty-eight hours before your wedding. You don't do it when you're talking on the phone, and he's coming to pick you up from the mall where you were helping your mom find a pair of heels to match her dress, and there are screaming kids everywhere since school has just let out and just as he asks if you want to get lunch at Arby's an airplane takes off overhead, engines drowning out all sound, and in that noisy instant you realize everything you're doing is wrong. You're supposed to wait until he arrives and tell him in person, somewhere dark and private, and be sad and say the right things, holding his hand gently, instead of just blurting it out on the phone when he's still driving down the interstate and can barely hear you.

She does all those things. And when Roy pulls up in front of Macy's, just throwing the truck into park and jumping out, engine running, she makes her mom go meet him while she speedwalks to the top floor of the store, looking for a quiet corner as she thumbs through the numbers in her phonebook. She gets to the right name and ducks into the boy's department, walking toward the back wall until she gets two reception bars. And stops.

Her hand is sweaty on the phone. It's shaking, too, as her heart thumps faster and makes her head throb. What time do flights to Australia leave? How far ahead are they? Is it nighttime there now? She looks at her little silver watch, the one Roy gave her for Christmas two years ago, and the sight of its familiar mother of pearl face makes her stomach flip over. She can't do this now.

After two gulping breaths she turns the phone off and slides it back into her purse. She's standing by a rack of little ties, the kind that have elastic around the neck. A sales associate sees her looking and heads her way, but she wards him off with a raised hand. And goes back downstairs to do things the way she's supposed to.

 

_July 1st_

She doesn't sleep all that night, the first time she's ever been alone in her own place. She left the alarm clock behind, along with most of the other appliances, so she sets her phone and leaves it on the box she's using as a nightstand. At three in the morning, when she's still too unsettled to sleep, she flips it open, staring at the green glow. The list of people she could call in the middle of the night has never been very long. She calls her mom instead.

 

_July 8th_

It's a funny sort of anniversary to celebrate, four weeks after ruining someone else's life, but she celebrates it anyhow. Gets into her car and takes a drive without telling anyone where she's going, stops for sushi at the place he didn't like because they didn't serve the porkchops that were the only Japanese food he'd eat, shops for hours at the antique store that bored him to tears, goes to see a foreign film. She knows it's mean to reduce him to the things she didn't like, and that there were so many times he went to restaurants and stores and movies when he didn't want to, but it's her anniversary. It's easier this way.

She's barely admitted it to herself, but she's been waiting for this day like it's some kind of international dateline, thinking that when she crosses it she'll be new and free and ready to start again. She's put on makeup and her favorite clothes, like it makes a difference over the phone, and she waits until after peak hours, because she doesn't think it will be a short conversation.

All day, it doesn't feel right. Not in the car, not at the restaurant, not at the mall. When she gets out of the movie it's dark and warm and there are little white lights twined up the trees in the courtyard, and all around her couples are walking out together, talking about the movie or their lives, little nothings. She thinks about her new apartment, still full of boxes and bags, and feels somehow unfinished.

She goes to a cafe, orders a cinnamon latte, pulls out her sketchbook, and draws until they close. When she gets home that night, it's the first time it ever feels like home.

 

_August 11th_

When Michael comes out of the bathroom yelling at Jan on his cellphone, his fly undone, and Dwight tries to convince everyone that it's a trend by pulling down his own zipper in solidarity, she actually has five numbers of his number punched into her phone before she realizes what she's doing. The shock wipes the laugh right off her face, even though the sight of Dwight's blue silk Star Trek boxers poking out is still pretty funny.

 

_September 2nd_

The company newsletter sits on her desk for ten minutes before she folds it in half and slides it into a hanging folder marked "misc" in her file drawer. It shouldn't be a surprise that the article gets things wrong, like the year he graduated from college, and it shouldn't be a surprise that he's profiled at all. "Rising Star," it says, like he's an actor or a basketball player instead of middle management, but she guesses they have to make it interesting somehow.

The picture is new. His haircut isn't dramatic, just different enough to make him almost a stranger. His smile isn't any different at all.

She wonders what would happen if she called Stamford and asked for him, like she asks for people at the other branches all the time. If he would recognize her, if she just started droning on about some business thing on Michael's behalf. If she would even recognize him.

It's too late to call him any for any other reason. He wouldn't understand why she's waited three months, and she can't really explain it either. He's probably moved on, probably dating someone new. He never had a problem with that before.

Still. It would be nice to hear his voice, just for a minute. It's almost lunch; she might get his voicemail if she waits a little. Or she could call and hang up once he answers, like she used to do when she was thirteen and had a crush on a different boy every week. If he redials, he'll only get the front desk, and she can pretend it was someone else in the office who called.

Her hand is on the phone as she thinks. Four months ago she didn't have make up schemes to hear his voice for a few seconds. Four months ago she could go sit on his desk and tease him for wearing the same tie two days in a row, and he would look up and tease her right back for only owning three cardigans, and if she leaned the right way her leg might brush against his when she crossed her ankles. It seems like a long time ago.

She'll save it, she decides, for some day when she's lonely and sad, when seeing Roy's truck in the parking lot makes her feel a stupid nagging ache, when she misses having a ring on her finger and the next fifty years of her life planned out ahead of her. For a time when she's ready to do more than hang up at the sound of his voice.


End file.
